Although the MHL (Mobile High-Definition Link) standard has been around for a while and implemented in phones like Samsung’s Galaxy SII. it hasn’t made much a name for itself. Basically MHL lets you connect your mobile device (phone or tablet) to your TV’s HML supported HDMI port and along with sending video signals, charges your device at the same time. Now, Silicon Images has announced the next next generation of MHL which adds faster charging and and 60Hz video vs the original’s 30Hz.

Press Release: Silicon Image Introduces Low Power Dual-Mode Transmitter IP Core Supporting Both HDMI® and MHL™ Connectivity Standards

SUNNYVALE, Calif., May 22, 2012 – Silicon Image (NASDAQ: SIMG), a leading provider of wireless and wired HD connectivity solutions, today announced the availability of a low power dual-mode transmitter intellectual property (IP) core that supports both the HDMI® (High-Definition Multimedia Interface) 1.4b and MHL™ (Mobile High-Definition Link) 2.0 standards. Silicon Image’s dual-mode HDMI/MHL transmitter IP core architecture reduces semiconductor development and manufacturing cost by sharing die area for both HDMI and MHL functionalities-offering mobile device application processor vendors the flexibility to design a single-chip solution that is configurable for both HDMI and MHL mobile devices.

MHL technology delivers 1080p 60Hz uncompressed video with up to eight channels of digital audio while charging the mobile device-enabling consumers to enhance their mobile experience by displaying content including HD video entertainment, photos, applications, and games on the big screen.

“With the explosive growth of MHL-enabled products in 2011 and 2012, mobile phone and tablet manufacturers are now adding MHL functionality to their new device platforms, allowing consumers to ‘plug and play’ their HD content from the small to big screen,” said Ron Richter, senior director of worldwide IP core licensing at Silicon Image. “Silicon Image’s dual-mode HDMI/MHL transmitter IP core allows SoC providers to quickly integrate MHL technology into their next-generation mobile devices, enabling a single SoC to support both HDMI and MHL technology without adding significant die area or pin count.”

Key features of Silicon Image’s dual-mode HDMI/MHL transmitter IP core include:
Single digital and analog design supporting both HDMI Version 1.4b & MHL 2.0
Low power design (1080p/60fps @ 30mW)
Configurable IP core design, with MHL implementation saving up to 10 pins in SoC package

With MHL technology, manufacturers can deliver next-generation products that:
Support 1080p 60Hz full HD video
Use established connectors for mobile and CE products, such as micro USB and HDMI
Enable faster charging of the latest smartphones and tablets when connected to MHL-enabled DTVs or monitors
Control the mobile device using the DTV’s remote control

Over 50 million MHL-enabled products shipped during 2011, and a steady release of new products continues to expand the MHL ecosystem, which already includes smartphones, tablets, DTVs, monitors, home theater products and accessories.

Silicon Image’s family of IP cores includes a broad range of HDMI and MHL technology solutions, image signal processor (ISP) camera cores, H.264, MPEG-1/2 and VC-1 video decoders up to 4Kx2K resolution, Serial ATA (SATA) storage and RAID controllers.

For more information about Silicon Image’s complete IP core product offering, visit our website at http://www.siliconimage.com/iplicensing/index.aspx.

Silicon Image Unveils Next-Generation MHL™ Products

MHL Transmitter and MHL-to-HDMI® Bridge ICs Provide 1080p60Hz Full HD Resolution for Mobile Products, DTVs, and Monitors

SUNNYVALE, Calif., May 15, 2012 – Silicon Image (NASDAQ: SIMG), a leading provider of wireless and wired HD connectivity solutions, today announced its next-generation MHL™ products, the SiI8240 MHL transmitter for mobile devices and the SiI9617 MHL-to-HDMI® bridge for DTVs and PC displays, which are also MHL 2.0 compliant. Both semiconductor products support 1080p60Hz full HD and the latest MHL specification features that include native 3D formats, alpha-numeric key codes for advanced remote control functions, and increased power charging from the display to enable faster charging of the latest smartphones and tablets.

Mobile devices continue to integrate higher performance processors and higher resolution HD displays. Silicon Image’s SiI8240 is the first MHL transmitter to output 1080p60Hz full HD, enabling mobile devices to drive today’s high-resolution DTVs and monitors at 60 frames per second. To enable Silicon Image’s MHL customers to seamlessly and quickly upgrade their MHL-enabled products to deliver higher resolutions, faster frame rates, and enhanced features, the SiI8240 has been designed to be pin compatible to the currently shipping SiI9244 MHL transmitter.

Today’s smartphones and tablets are increasingly transforming from traditional communication devices to mobile set-top-boxes, gaming consoles, and PCs. With this transformation, consumers are more often connecting their smartphone to a larger display to enjoy new interactive applications-from digital entertainment and office productivity to gaming. With the SiI9617 MHL-to-HDMI bridge, consumer electronics (CE) manufacturers can design their latest 1080p60Hz DTVs and monitors to seamlessly include the latest MHL capabilities. When a consumer connects an MHL-enabled mobile device to an MHL display, that display will charge and provide control for the mobile device, while showing video, productivity applications and games in 1080p60Hz full HD quality. With MHL 2.0 compliant products, the latest smartphones and tablets will charge up to twice as fast when connected to an MHL 2.0-enabled display.

“Silicon Image’s new products offer an end-to-end MHL 1080p60Hz connectivity solution for our global mobile, CE, and PC customers,” said Tim Vehling, vice president of product marketing at Silicon Image, Inc. “With these latest products from Silicon Image – including a drop-in pin-compatible version – manufacturers can quickly develop and roll-out their next-generation MHL 2.0-enabled products.”

MHL technology continues to gain broad industry adoption with over 50 million MHL-enabled products shipped globally during 2011. Silicon Image anticipates that MHL-enabled product shipments worldwide will more than double in 2012. The growing ecosystem of MHL devices includes smartphones, tablets, DTVs, monitors, home theater products and accessories.

Silicon Image offers a comprehensive portfolio of production-proven MHL semiconductor and IP solutions for mobile, DTV and home theater applications. For more information about Silicon Image’s MHL product portfolio, please visit: www.siliconimage.com.

It has been a while since we have been waiting for an untethered Jailbreak for iOS 5.1 but it’s been done. Go ahead and download Absinthe 2.0 to allow installation of Cydia to your iPhone 4S or iPhone 4. Make sure you use TinyUmbrella to backup you SHSH blobs in case of disaster.

Jailbreaking your device is as easy as plugging it in and running Absinthe 2.0 and hitting the Jailbreak button. It took about six minutes for my iPhone 4S to complete the process as well as a reboot but it progressed pretty smoothly. As always, do this on your own risk and backup your iPhone through iTunes or iCloud before progressing.

While the rest of the world is still waiting for Samsung’s flagship Smartphone Galaxy SIII, it is already on sale in the UAE. The successor to the most popular Android phone boasts a 4.8″ Super AMOLED HD screen and the Exynos 4212 quad Core processor. With a model number of I9300, the Galaxy S3 in white is available at Carrefour for AED 2,499 (US$680) as well as through the local career du at the same price.

Acer held a media event today showcasing some of their upcoming laptops and tablets for 2012. The event kicked off with Acer’s Country manager Gregory Nizovsky, giving us a brief on where Acer as a brand stands in the Middle East followed by what their plans for 2012.

Following Gregory, Mark Prosser, Product Marketing Manager, Mobility Products, Acer Computer (M.E) Ltd took stage and disclosed the new laptops and tablets in the region. The following models can be expected from Acer in the months ahead.

Acer V3

The Acer V3 will be branded with the Olympics logo and features a premium finish with 14″, 15.6″ and 17.3″ models powered by Intel’s Core family of CPUs and NVIDIA GPUs. The 1600×900 resolution LED backlit screen will make sure Blu-ray movies look good won it.

Acer Aspire S5

Dubbed as the world’s thinnest Ultrabook that measures only 15 mm and weighs less than 1.35 kg, the S5 features the magical I/O panel that reveals itself when needed through a key press and houses the first thunderbolt port found on a PC laptop. Powered by Ivy Bridge and SSD drives, this next-gen Ultrabook has instant resume in 1.5seconds and a battery that lasts weeks on standby.

Acer Timeline Ultra M3

If you love your notebooks to be thin and light but also like to game on them, then the Timeline Ultra M3 with a dedicated Kepler (NVIDIA GT640M) GPU should keep you chugging- especially with that eight hour battery life. Measuring just 20mm thin, this laptop also comes equipped with Core CPUs from Intel and SSDs.

Acer Iconia Tab A700

Super hi-res displays is what is going to drive the next generation of tablets and Acer is well prepared for that with it’s ICONIA TAB A700 tablet with a 10.1″ screen featuring a full-HD 1920×1200 resolution. Along with the impressive display, Acer is equipping this tablet with a Tegra 3 SoC and a 9800 mAh battery.

Souq.com has a daily deals section that sends out a newsletter to it’s subscribers every morning highlighting some of the deals they have going on their website. At times, there are some pretty good deals that are almost impossible to secure due to limited availability of stock which I can live with. But it’s when they try and fool their potential customer is what ticks me off. Here is the screenshot for the email that was sent out today.

As you can see, they are selling the new iPad at a pretty decent price of AED 1,969. However, look at the retail price and discount level on that deal. As per souq.com, the retail price is AED 2,999 and you’re saving a whopping 35% making it a really good deal.

Now head over to http://www.apple.com/ae/ipad/, the site of a company called Apple that actually MAKES these tablets. And look the pricing on their website TODAY. It clearly states AED 1,999. Considering that Apple is the manufacturer of the iPad, I believe they are pretty much the authority when deciding what the the retail price of their product should be and they have chosen to list it at AED 1,999 and not 2,999 that souq.com is claiming to be the retail price. So although souq.com has a lower price, it is definitely NOT saving you 35% off the retail price. It’s actually less than 2% savings.

While I have highlighted souq.com in this particular example, sadly this is the state of many retailers across the UAE. They assume their customer is an idiot and try and take advantage of it. IMHO, that is definitely not the best way of growing a business. Folks, try and be honest- mention the fact that you are selling a product below the retail price and passing savings off to your customer. But don’t blatantly lie on what a fantastic deal you are offering.

If you have been holding off getting the new iPad (aka iPad 3) because you wanted to purchase the official version, well, it’s time to get your wallet ready. While it has been widely available as a grey import in the UAE since it’s launch a couple of months back, the official version of the new iPad is expected to land locally as well as other parts of the region at the start of next week- May 12, 2012.

Along with the United Arab Emirates, the new iPad will also be officially launched in Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain, Jordan and Egypt. Apple has priced it’s latest tablet pretty much in-line as the grey market imports- right under AED 2,000.

Apple has also chosen to avoid using 4G for marketing the new iPad in the region as they have been sued in other parts of the world where the tablet only works under 3G and not LTE due to the different bands that carriers use across the globe.

The latest version of iOS is a minor revision that works on sorting out bugs- something that should be obvious given the very small increment in the version number. As per Apple, this update contains improvements and bug fixes, including:

- Improves reliability of using HDR option for photos taken using the Lock Screen shortcut
- Addresses bugs that could prevent the new iPad from switching between 2G and 3G networks
- Fixes bugs that affected AirPlay video playback in some circumstances
- Improved reliability for syncing Safari bookmarks and Reading List
- Fixes an issue where ‘Unable to purchase’ alert could be displayed after successful purchase

For information on the security content of this update, please visit this website

Available for your iPhone 3GS, 4 and 4S as well all models of the iPad and the third and fourth generation iPods, the latest build 9B206 can be downloaded directly as an OTA to your device or through iTunes.

RIM handed out the BlackBerry 10 Alpha devices at the BlackBerry Jam session that was held alongside BlackBerry World 2012 in Orlando last week. With some digging, fans have found out code-names for upcoming BlackBerry devices and N4BB has published the following list of devices that are yet to make an appearance:

# R044 – Nevada 0x8400270A,1
# R051 – Winchester2 LTE 0x0c001a06,1
# R052 – Winchester2 HSPA+ 0x0d001a06,1
# R053 – Winchester2 LTE HSPA+ 0x0e001a06,1
# R061 – Colt 0×04002307,1
# R072 – London 0×04002607,1
# R073 – Blackforest 0×04002706,1
# R084 – Nashville 0x8500270A,1
# R085 – Naples 0x8600270A,1

From that list above, Nevada could be the keyboard based BlackBerry 10 device while Winchester is probably the 3G version of the current BlackBerry PlayBook. Colt is the Alpha Dev unit that was handed out last week and London is expected to be the first official BlackBerry 10 launch device. Finally, BlackForest is supposedly the 10″ version of the PlayBook and we have no info on Nashville and Naples.

At the keynote session during BlackBerry World 2012, RIM’s CEO Thorsten Heins showed us a glimpse of what to expect from their upcoming OS BlackBerry 10. Part of that demonstration included a camera app that allows you to highlight regions such as faces of people in a picture and move frames back and forth only for that region to get a perfect picture where, possibly every one is looking at the camera and smiling.

The crowd was certainly surprised and delighted by what they saw, but I knew I had covered something like this a few months back attending Qualcomm’s iQ event. At that event was a company called Scalado demonstrating exactly what RIM did. In fact, as per TechCrunch, RIM has licensed the technology from Scalado:

RIM has been working with Scalado on camera technology and has licensed some of the Scalado technology for the BlackBerry 10 platform. As shown during the BlackBerry World Keynote, RIM is planning a unique implementation of the technology on BlackBerry 10 to provide an incredible user experience, allowing for more customization by the user and enabling them to easily capture and share their perfect moments.

The following video shows my original session from Scalado last year and as you can see, this is exactly what RIM demonstrated at the stage.

It’s a pretty awesome technology that I have see working well. And it’s great to learn that it will be a part of BlackBerry 10. All we need is a good and fast camera and hopefully, taking that perfect group picture will become a thing of the past.

The message was clear to all attendees of BlackBerry World 2012- RIM’s annual gathering of employees, partners, developers and media. BlackBerry 10 will deliver all that it’s promised to deliver and on time, this time around, which is set for the later part of this year. RIM’s recent CEO Thorsten Heins took stage and showed us a tiny glimpse of what is expected out of the new OS and I must say that I walked away impressed by what little he showed.

Just a few days back, I had written an article on what RIM needs to show us with the BlackBerry 10 platform so lets find out how well RIM did. Let’s start with the official video clip posted by RIM on their YouTube channel that shows some of the features of the BlackBerry 10.

Impressive right? Now let’s tackle the questions I had put forth and find out what was answered.

Gorgeous UI that is different

I’ll give RIM a thumbs up on this one. The UI is extremely stylish and from what little I saw, different that iOS and Android. The task switching pane reminds me of Meego found on Nokia’s N9 whereas swipes and rounded-corners for applications take a page out of Palm’s WebOS. We still don’t know what the main/home screen will look like but I certainly like the flow of applications.

Smooth and Snappy

One of the things that Thorsten mentioned in an interview session with the press is the thing he was most excited about was how smooth and snappy BlackBerry 10 is shaping up to be- no more hourglasses or lags. The video and the live demonstration of the unit showed it to be fairly capable and with the rest of the year left to optimize, I am going to give RIM a thumbs up on this as well.

Social Integration

The start of the video shows the Universal Inbox that BlackBerry is famous for and the Accounts tab selected at the bottom so expect the same Social integration that is part of PlayBook and hopefully some more. With Gist as a part of RIM now, I think this will be a no-brainer so another thumbs up for RIM

Great Camera

While the quality/specs of the camera were not revealed, what was revealed was the application that looked very much like what we saw from Scalado at Qualcomm’s iQ event. Here is a video of Scalado demonstrating exactly what we saw at the keynote

RIM confirmed that they have indeed licensed the technology from Scalado in a statement posted at TechCruch.

RIM has been working with Scalado on camera technology and has licensed some of the Scalado technology for the BlackBerry 10 platform. As shown during the BlackBerry World Keynote, RIM is planning a unique implementation of the technology on BlackBerry 10 to provide an incredible user experience, allowing for more customization by the user and enabling them to easily capture and share their perfect moments.

This means good things, and I’m pretty sure that RIM will pair the incredible software with the hardware it deserves. So another thumbs up.

Apps, Apps and More Apps

There were close to five thousand people that attended BlackBerry World 2012 and a good number of them were developers- each of whom is going home with a BlackBerry 10 Alpha Dev device. This will certainly give RIM a lot of traction by the time their OS is released and allow for a fairly featured App World at launch.

However, we did not hear about any partnerships with big companies like Skype/Microsoft or Amazon/Kindle. For RIM to succeed with BlackBerry 10, they need to get the heavy-weights behind them as no matter how good of a platform they build, Apps are what matters to end-users and the lack of popular apps will make the general user turn away.

The Keyboard

In closing, I mentioned that RIM will not abandon a hardware keyboard as that is one of their primary strengths and Thorsten confirmed that they will launch a BlackBerry 10 device with a hardware keyboard. That being said, the innovation that RIM is bringing to soft-keyboards was one of the highlights of the videos you saw above and probably the feature that impressed me the most about BlackBerry 10. Swiping up to complete works and back to delete them makes using a soft keyboard with one-hand extremely impressive.

In closing, Thorsten mentioned that there are plenty of surprises that RIM has yet to show with BlackBerry 10 and considering that the devices are still a good quarter or two away, I can understand that he did not want to give the competition any more ideas by showcasing what else they have.

Of course the biggest challenge for RIM is making sure they survive the next few months by the time BlackBerry 10 is released. While things are looking good for them in the Middle East, other parts of Asia and South America, they are losing share in the US market which tends to produces the most vocal critics.